Scene One, Take Twenty-Two-Audrey Hepburn and William Holden’s “Paris When It Sizzles” (1952)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Zack James

[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Peter Markin was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]

Paris When It Sizzles, starring Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Noel Coward, 1952   

[Maybe there is something to this change of leadership on this site. I will not go through the details of the change-over from the now disappeared Allan Jackson, who went by the moniker Peter Paul Markin, to Greg Green since Josh Breslin in his introduction to a film review on the original version of The Front Page (dated December 15, 2017) went over that in detail including the how and why of that moniker choose by Mr. Jackson.  What I will say in the interest of transparency was that I was among the leaders of what became around the office known as the “Young Turks” who were in varying degrees fed up with Markin/Jackson’s concentration over the last year or so on the turbulent 1960s, the time of his coming of age and that of a number of the older writers dubbed “the old-timers” in the dispute rather than the wider look at politics, culture, society, history which was the original intention when this operation got up and running on-line some fifteen years ago.

What I will also say and leave it at that for now is that I am happy that I have been able to finally do a film review rather than being pigeon-holed solely doing book reviews. Markin/Jackson, strangely given his coming of age at a time when among certain elements, especially the young, increasing thwarted any attempts by any writers, young or old, to write outside their specialties and within those specialties to create ranks for example when I started here several years ago I was designated associate book critic and Frank Jackman had the senior position (everybody else then was a stringer, a free-lancer) and when he moved over to Senior Political Commentator I moved into his spot and Brad Fox and Lance Lawrence became associates. Greg has, after a short unsuccessful experiment designating everybody including himself as “writer,” changed to just using everybody’s name alone in their byline identification spot. Maybe when Jackson was younger he would have bought into that idea but not recently so early on I have tip my hat to Greg on this one. Zack]     

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I read somewhere or maybe some English literature professor in college mentioned it but when you break down every story it fits into one of about ten major themes, at least in Western literature. That same observation can be used to cover Hollywood films which after all are in their basic frameworks based on words, on written scripts except the few, very few directors who ad lib their efforts. Hollywood may follow that pattern but when it comes taking a look at itself as a cultural transmission belt it has had a love-hate relationship with films which deal with the film industry. The film under review Paris When It Sizzles (frankly an odd title although the action does take place in Paris although it could have been set anywhere the important thing being that it lampoons every Hollywood trope along the way and so maybe Hollywood where the long knives would be at the ready probably rightly should have been passed over.   

Follow me if you can. Boozy, lazy, out of ideas or having too many ideas screen-writer Richard Benson with a ton of films under his belt, played by William Holden. Holden last seen in this space as a screenwriter turned “kept pet, kept man, floating face down in silent screen seen better days mentally ill Norma Desmond’s high number Sunset Boulevard mansion swimming pool after she put the rooty-toot-toot to him when he tried to leave her is under the gun from his producer played by noted playwright Noel Coward to get on with a script he has been procrastinating about until almost the end of his contract. (That film where Holden was last seen Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard not a paean to the industry that nurtured him either was an example of the hate part of the equation.) Enter Gaby, played by dewy-eyed, magic eyed fetching Audrey Hepburn who even younger guys like me have a crush on the minute they see her on screen and hope against hope of finding their own Ms. Hepburn lookalike, as a American ex-pat typist who is to do that duty while Benson rattles out the story-line before that two days ahead deadline.            

This is the beautiful part of the film (beyond some very funny and a few not so funny sent-ups of writers and the film industry) is that Benson with an assist or two by Gaby goes through every possible film genre once he/they establish the initial idea of having two young people meet in a production he has working- titled The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. They try the standard boy meets girl thing, suspense, intrigue, thriller, spy, horror, gangster, hell, even an old fashioned stand-by the barroom brawl before they are done. Here is the other beautiful part. This is really a story within a story, a boy meets girl story within a story since along the way, surprise, surprise one beat-up screen-writer and one typist fall head over heels in love. So maybe that thing I read or some English literature college professor was wrong, maybe there is only one major theme in Western literature and Hollywood-boy meets girl (and the modern same sex and transgender variation of late).              

(Thanks Greg for letting me spread my wings and I hope you assign me more film reviews. This is fun. Zack)